Everyone knows I have a work-appropriate non-sexual crush deep respect for my supervisor. She’s a gifted, knowledgeable social worker, and manages to be fun and have a great sense of humor while being a really fair boss. (And dammit, if I weren’t anonymous I could show this to her and totally lobby for some comp time.) Therefore, when she gives me advice, I take it seriously.

We also all know that I had a grand old time with my self-evaluation. However, that was only part of the process. My supervisor has to evaluate me as well.

Essentially, she thinks I’m pretty awesome. This is good, because a compliment from someone you admire is way better than a compliment from someone you know to be a jackass. (Like when Kanye West told me he liked my shoes.) But it’s an evaluation, you need something to work on. And nobody’s perfect.

So my area to improve? Not taking my work home with me. You know, not taking it to heart so much when things go wrong. Not being overly involved with my families. When bad things happen, not being so devastated that it impacts my work, now or in the long-term.

My supervisor admitted that she is still struggling with this. Probably because it’s impossible.

There’s not even a good consensus on what is and isn’t the right way to handle this. I mean, you need to maintain a professional distance. If you take every set back hard, and every struggle your families go through becomes personal, you’re not going to last. But, you know, you never want to be jaded. You need to care, or you’ll be terrible at this and won’t have empathy.

So care, but don’t care too much. You’ll know if you’re caring too much. You won’t really be able to do anything about it, because you’re in too deep, but you’ll know. If you’re not caring enough, you might realize it, but you won’t care. Because…you know.

When the topic of getting overly involved or caring too much comes up, people usually talk about self care. When we talk about self care, it’s usually meaningless bullshit. Not that self care (which, for the last time, my non-social work friends, is not our euphemism for masturbation) isn’t important. It is. But everyone knows what works for them. When it’s discussed at an agency event, someone always tries to get me to meditate. No. I don’t meditate. I go to the bar I live above, hang out with my niece, listen to Freelance Whales or Mumford and Sons, write obnoxious blog posts, watch Arrested Development or A Very Potter Musical, or go to the gym. Oddly specific, I know. Did you write those down? Did they help you? No, because you have what works for you.

Anyway, self care is something you do continuously to keep yourself going at work. To avoid burning out. But it doesn’t address how involved is too involved. How you maintain a professional distance while having empathy and feeling, at least on some level, what your clients are feeling.

I realized how much of an issue this is for me particularly after one of my little boys was shot. It’s horrifying, even in the abstract, because that event was so wrong and against everything that should happen. The fact that my supervisor pretty much directed me to go home that day, because she knew I was no good to anyone, made me realize that this was going to be a struggle for me.

I happened to run into his thirteen year old sister in the neighborhood that day. She ran up to me for a hug. I could pretty much hear my casework professor’s voice ring in my ear. “Hugging a client? Unprofessional and confusing to the child. Is this about what you need or what she needs? This child needs boundaries reinforced.” (My casework professor was a known bitch.) But then I could also hear myself. “Who the fuck cares?” We both needed a hug.

My supervisor had talked to me about not overextending myself with this family. They had a ton of issues but the kids have an incredible amount of potential. They’re just so special, and so intelligent, and it kills me to think of some of them wasting it by not going to school or hanging out with gang member assholes. So I did a lot for them. I was always looking for extra ways to help. To a point that I’m pretty sure I’m invited to their guidance counselor’s wedding. Some families just hit you hard.

The problem is, you can’t make people change. I could make things easy for this mother, but I couldn’t make her put her children first. While I was running around killing myself, because I couldn’t stand the thought of something happening to these kids when they were supposed to be in school, or them being screwed over for life because they dropped out in the seventh grade, they didn’t mind all that much. So in addition to them still not doing what they need to do, I had the fun bonus of kind of starting to resent them.

I care deeply about this family, and I love those kids. I love all the kids I work with. I have boundaries. I don’t friend them on Facebook (I will admit to checking a girl’s Facebook, once, because I was afraid she was going to school one day for the purpose of fighting. Fortunately, her guidance counselor had checked it before I did.) I don’t initiate physical contact, though my teen girls are huggers and my toddlers are under the impression that I’m some sort of jungle gym.

But I call my kids sweetheart or shortie. I joke around with the moms. My teens and I have secret handshakes, and on occasion I buy them lunch. When they come in, I tell them how happy I am that they made it in, and I know that they believe me. I think about these kids when they’re not with me, and I worry about them and I’ve cried over them and for them more than once.

My bitchy casework professor would kind of hate all of this.

Friends and family members have a hard time understanding my job, and the hard to explain relationship I have to my families. I know they worry about the effect emotional involvement in my work affects me. So do I. I can have moments of feeling like I can’t do this anymore, but they can only be moments. If I didn’t love and care about my families, or worry about these kids when they leave my office, I’d be no good at this.

There’s some kind of balance between, “You got evicted? Well, probably should have followed through on the program I sent you to” and “You got evicted?! This is all my fault! I’ll stay at work until ten and pay to put you up in a hotel tonight!” Something that preserves my sanity (hey, I could have sanity) while getting people the help they need.

I’m sure this past week you all sat at your computers, despondent and tearing your hair out due to lack of SocialJerk updates.

No? Maybe a little? I’m being told you were actually all fine. Well, all right then.

Point is, I was gone. For a week. Vacation is important for people in stressful jobs. Unfortunately, “social worker” didn’t make it onto Tina Fey’s work related stress level chart, but I think we’re somewhere between “business guys who do stuff with money” and “managing a Chili’s on a Friday night.” We need to vacate every so often, in order to maintain our sanity.

So the boyfriend and I packed it up for a few days in Orlando. That’s right, Disney, Universal Studios, Pirate’s Cove mini golf, and lots of churros. It’s not what you would necessarily call a relaxing vacation, of course. First of all, the girl who wrote this went to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. I saw Hagrid’s hut, drank pumpkin juice, toured Hogwart’s, and pretty much turned into Kristen Bell meeting a sloth.

Plus there are crowds, heat, lines, and children. Some moments make you think, “aw, doing this with kids would be so fun!” But more make you think, “thank Jesus we’re the weird adults waiting way too long for the Peter Pan ride.”

You see a lot of sweet family moments, and a lot of nominees for the Terrible Parenting Hall of Fame. (It’s located in Cleveland.) Your two year old is having a tantrum after spending a fourteen hour day in direct sunlight with no nap? Why, that’s practically unheard of! You’re encouraging your seven year old to stomp on adult’s feet to cut to the front of the line at the Haunted Mansion? I can’t identify a single bad lesson there, good work!

But through all the exhaustion, all of the instances of wishing people wouldn’t try to sneak their kids onto rides they’re too little for, there’s one think you have to love–kids are enthusiastic. Whether it was the nine year old next to me on the Test Track at Epcot, yelling, “Now that’s what I call a roller coaster!” or the six year old next to me on the Tower of Terror gleefully informing me that she didn’t scream at all (I could not say the same) kids enjoy things to the fullest and let you know what they’ve achieved. They’re not worried about looking dumb.

It stops at some point. They become cool. Or at least, they want to be. And there’s nothing worse than a child trying to be cool. At one point, in Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room, I looked to my left and saw a four year old dressed in a full Buzz Lightyear costume. He was in heaven and thought he looked amazing. Directly in front of me were three overindulged pre-teens, saying to their father, “Oh my God, this is just birds talking? Can we go? Whose idea was this?”

Because taking a vacation from thinking about work would actually make my brain explode, of course I had to relate it back. This probably most accurately sums up what I love about working with children, before they get prematurely interested in dating and therefore way too concerned about looking cool. They just think they’re good at everything. We always talk about what a person’s strengths are in social work. Ask an eight year old what they’re good at. I hope you have a while. All five year olds are good at drawing. Maybe two of my friends will say they are. Singing, dancing, acting, playing the kazoo, training dogs, doing imitations of cartoon voices? All viable career options for the under ten year olds I work with, based on their stunning talents.

Then I ask my teenagers. As much as I love them, the answers of what they’re good at are decidedly different. (Unless they’re trying to be brash and obnoxious, but you can tell they don’t really mean it.) “Um, I don’t know. What do you mean, what am I good at?” “Nothing, not really.” “I guess I do well in school?”

So, some of my favorites, in no particular order.

1.) Back at Anonymous Youth Center, I had the five to nine year olds out on the playground. A seven year old boy came up to me, unprovoked, to let me know, “I’m really good at running backwards. See, like this.”

He then proceeded to run. Backwards. I’ll be honest, it was mediocre. Because no one is good at running backwards. But he was thrilled to pieces and way proud of himself.

2.) More recently, at Anonymous Agency, one of my eight year old girls started talking about her dreams from the future after a counseling session. “Do you want to hear me sing? I want to be professional. Like, on The Voice.”

As we walked through the office, back to the waiting room where her mom was, past all of my coworkers whom she had never met, she sang something I now unfortunately know to be “Baby” by Justin Bieber. (I’m not linking to it. You’re welcome.) This kid sang with one finger on her ear, because that’s how Christina Aguilera does it.

3.) A six year old girl, when I was an intern, told me, “I think I want to be an archaeologist and a chef and a ballet dancer. But also, I should be an artist, because I’m the best at drawing.”

She owed it to the world.

4.) A nine year old boy insisted on reciting his times tables to me, because he was the only one who had memorized all the way up to twelve. It took a long time, but I was pretty damn impressed.

5.) “Breakdancing? I’m really good at breakdancing!” A ten year old boy, who of course got down on the ground to dance in the waiting room. He was undeterred by the fact that no one had mentioned breakdancing.

My social work advice for the week? If you’re feeling down and bored, try for a minute to look at the world and yourself through the eyes of a latency age child. There’s probably something to get excited about.

When I was fresh out of a pineapple under the sea social work school, I was 25 years old. I worked for two years after undergrad as a child wrangler coordinator of an elementary after school program, so I wasn’t one of those brutally obnoxious 23 year olds, but I was close. I had also always been a year younger than everyone in my grade, either due to being a genius, or born on January 1st. My brother and most of my cousins are older than I am. In short, I’ve been rather accustomed to being one of the youngest, wherever I go, for quite some time now.

But of course, things change.

There’s a lot of turnover in social work, particularly in the field of child welfare. I mentioned recently that I’ve noticed that everyone in child welfare seems to have either been in the field for fewer than three years, or more than thirty. There’s not much in between. This isn’t terribly surprising. It’s a high burnout field. People get into it when they’re young and energetic. A lot of the time, that doesn’t last. For some, work in child welfare is like me every year the day after the New York City marathon. I think, why don’t I do that? It seems amazing and like lots of fun. Then I run for three miles and remember that I don’t really care for it.

Then there are others who just never seem to leave. Many are talented, and dedicated to the field. They rise within the agency and make changes from the top. Some just stick around long enough and wind up getting promoted because…seniority, or something. No one really knows.

I’m coming up on three years, so I guess we’ll find out which category I fall into.

My first year as an intern, I worked with homebound senior citizens. These are the people we ominously call the “oldest old.” 85 and up, for the most part. They looked at fresh-faced little SJ as though a fetus had been sent to their home. They asked how old I was and reminded me to wear a coat.

The next year, I began working with families. It seemed that all we talked about in supervision and in class was the fact that I, like many of my student contemporaries, appeared to be about 12. Would this be insulting or troubling to families? I mean, who is this kid, telling me how to raise my kids? Would the teens walk all over me because I’m obviously not a real grown up?

For the most part, it was never a terrible issue with clients. Most people seemed willing to take me on merit. What held me back was not my age, but my inexperience. I lacked confidence in my abilities, because you know, I didn’t have much in the way of abilities yet. (By the way, students–it’s fine. Everyone has to learn, and there’s no other way.)

It was, however, a bit of an issue for coworkers, at times. I had a supervisor who condescendingly told me she was too nervous to send me out on home visits, because I looked like I could be her daughter. Cool, I’ll just put my feet up, I guess. People felt free to ask how old I was, which I think is a little rude, unless you’re trying to set that person up on a playdate. My thoughts and opinions, or plans for my career, were often met with a laugh and an, “Oh, you’ll see how it is after a few years!” Will I? Tell me how it will be, soothsayer, I wish to know the future too!

Like I said, though, things change.

I’m 28 now. I’ve always looked young, but I’m old enough now that people who think I’m a teenager are either under eight, over 80, or a little deranged. Last week I did a school visit, and was scolded for not having my school ID. I patiently (or something) explained that I was a social worker, not a student, and was allowed up to the office after a minimally invasive metal detector wanding. (Imagine going through the equivalent of airport security every day, just to go to high school. Ugh.) When I got up to the guidance counselor’s office, I was immediately asked if I was Miguel’s mom.

I have no idea who Miguel is, but I know that he’s not my child, and that he’s a high school student. Meaning that it seemed that I had aged about twenty years on the staircase.

I’m not the youngest around the office anymore. There is a crop of 24 and 25 year olds starting up, and I’m suddenly in the strange position of being considered one of the seasoned workers. (Mmm, paprika!) These new workers are more idealistic and energetic than me. They might even be cuter than me…I’m pretty sure they’re not cuter than me. But it’s weird to no longer have that, hey, I’m the youthful new gal thing to fall back on. I’m legit now. People come to me with questions about paperwork and benefits, and very often I know the answers. They come to me for advice when they’re stuck with a client. The assumption there is that I know what I’m doing, which can be a little scary to live up to.

While I’m still mistaken for a teen or a parent during school visits, at some point it will only be parent. And that will make sense. Then I’ll know I’ve made it.

It’s rare that I run out of things to say. Really, really rare. Especially when I’m writing.

But lately, it seems like there’s nothing to be said.

I recently came in to work, confronted with the worst message I’ve ever gotten. One of my little boys, a twelve year old, was shot while playing basketball. He was in his own neighborhood, in the afternoon, on an unseasonably warm and sunny winter day.

He’s progressing well and is going to be fine. Weeks in the hospital are unpleasant, but he’s walking already and getting back to his usual self.

It’s almost scary how quickly things seem to be going back to normal. How not entirely shocked the family was. They were devastated, of course. But they’ve all been in situations where they had to run from gunfire. Their friends have been shot. There’s almost a sense that it was just a matter of time.

The day it happened, I can’t say I handled it well. At first I walked around the office frantically. No one else was here, and the nervous energy within me couldn’t be burned out. By the time my supervisor got in, I thought I had it under control. I started sobbing in her office, though, and I realized I didn’t.

I held it together when talking to the family, when visiting this child in the hospital. But all I could think of was how completely, disgustingly unfair it was that this child was traumatized, physically hurt, his life changed forever. Kids shouldn’t have to deal with this.

The thing here is that there are no lessons to take away from this. This child did everything right. He is a smart kid, goes to school, is involved in extracurriculars, always tells his mother where he’s going. Going to college and getting out of the Bronx has always been his focus. His building is run by gang activity, but he’s always managed to stay out of it.

He was a child, playing with his friends. His mother was happy to send him out to have a good time.

Hearing the phrase “everything happens for a reason” has sent me into a rage that’s a little shocking, even for me, since this incident. There is no reason for kids to be shot by stray bullets while being kids. There is nothing to take away from this.

He wasn’t in ” the wrong place at the wrong time.” Where exactly do you go when you’re twelve and want to play basketball?

I usually like to wrap things up nicely. I like to end my rambling thoughts with an affirmation that we’re doing the right thing, that I’ve helped someone, that things aren’t all bad.

But how much are we helping, when we’re sending our children back out into a war zone? When these things can happen so easily? When there are human beings still walking around my neighborhood who think nothing of opening fire on a goddamn playground, while little kids are playing there? When others know what happened but don’t come forward?

Better to be complicit in horrifically injuring a child than to be a snitch, right?

I know the right answers, I really do. We can’t just give up. Some things do get better. We can’t control these random tragedies–he could have just as easily been hit by a car if he were living a charmed life in the suburbs.

But this is a time when it feels like I can’t do it anymore. That’s selfish, and it’s wrong, and this whole situation is not about me. It’s a shitty situation that I couldn’t have prevented, and that I can’t fix. All I can do is support the family and this child. Bring them McDonalds and beanie babies and Metrocards.

Yesterday was a rough day. Like, the kind your mom warned you about. Or maybe she didn’t. But still, they happen. I had to listen to an awesome twelve year old girl cry about how she wants to go live with her dad, because her mom blames everything on this kid and just can’t be nice. Mom doesn’t beat this child. Her physical needs are taken care of. The mom just has a unique ability to make this kid feel like crap. Dad probably can’t take her, and mom would never allow it anyway, but it was all she could think of.

I am trying to help this kid. Really, really trying. But with a parent who isn’t willing to even think about change, and a situation that doesn’t warrant removal (and really, would removal solve this? Would this child suddenly be in the warm, loving environment she deserves? Maybe. Probably not.) I’m limited in what I can do. A mentor and an afterschool program to get her out of the house, counseling at school, and support from me are kind of all I can do. It happens. There are situations you can’t fix, because the people in charge of them don’t want you to help.

Let’s focus on the good. For a moment

1.) I have been working with a mother and her thirteen year old daughter for close to a year now. They were barely speaking when they started coming in, and it is ridiculously heartwarming to see how much they’ve grown. They do things together and talk to each other. Soon, their case will be closed, which is depressing and thrilling all at the same time.

Anyway, this girl is super smart, and loves school. She just got accepted to the Catholic school of her choice, the one she’s been dreaming of, complete with a full scholarship. As if that weren’t enough (it totally was) she ran to the office to tell me. (After crying with her mom over it.)

2.) The other morning, there was a parenting group meeting at the office for the first time. They assured the clients that child care would be provided, but neglected to tell the workers who provide the child care. As a result, there was a lot of, “Well, I have other work to do. They didn’t tell me. I can’t watch these kids rabble rabble rabble.”

One of the kids in question was from one of my families, so I told the parents to leave their kids with me and go ahead to group. I don’t know how many of you have had the surprise experience of reading “The Cat in the Hat” to a group of toddlers who are extremely rarely read to, but it’s a delight. Trust me.

3.) Recently, we had a holiday celebration for participants that didn’t go exactly as planned. Supervision was lacking, there was a lot of petty infighting, we didn’t have time or money…the usual. But my homemade mancala boards? Were a HUGE hit. Families asked to take them home, so they could play together. Video game addict kids wanted to teach their friends to play. Victory!

Egg carton + beads = no money fun!

4.) In social work, a case being ready to close (not closing because time is up, or because they’re moving on to other services, or the kids are being removed) is a great success. I’ve got a family with an eight year old who is in just that position. They’re doing well. The mother just told me, “Things are still stressful, but I have ways to manage it now.” Yeah. That’s pretty much it.

But that’s not the best part. Here is a pic of me and her eight year old daughter.

See how we get our hair done at the same place?

5.) Another mother just told me that her son had been acting up lately, so she made an appointment with his psychiatrist to see if his ADHD meds needed to be adjusted. This was a woman who remembered to give this child his meds only about half the time last year. As a result, this was a child who spent half the time last year throwing chairs.

6.) My girls’ group ended this week. (Speaking of crying. Oh, we weren’t? I was.) One of our traditions is to have all of the girls write a card to each girl in the group, saying something positive about their participation. Two of the girls decided to write notes to me, and insisted, under pain of death, that I display them in my cubicle.

Yeah. You don't get that often.

We can’t help everyone. There are situations that we work our best on, and then have to admit that there’s nothing else we can do. It’s just reality. The reminders, especially visual reminders, that there are, in fact, people we help, and changes we help bring about, can make quite the difference.

At the same time, we need to have faith in our participants. Without faith and hope (and charity, why not) we wouldn’t be able to do this work. We would start to think that, because not everything gets better, nothing gets better. We should just give up, remove all the kids from all the parents, and close up shop.

You can usually tell when someone has been doing this job for too long, or when they have gone way too long without a fake sick day mental health day. Some of my coworkers seem to really assume the worst in people.

A young girl was once talking about her mother taking in a foster child with a disability. A coworker instantly said, “Oh, she wants the money?” This girl seemed surprised, saying no, her mother loved kids. Coworker clearly wasn’t buying it.

Another coworker told me about a mother who was excited about the romantic relationship she had just begun. My coworker told her that this unkown guy was probably only interested in her to gain access to the client’s teenage daughter.

I’ve been accused of being cynical. Honestly. I don’t know why, but it’s happened. I’m not cynical. I’m sarcastic, I get angry, and sometimes I do a convincing impression of Eeyore, but I’m no cynic. I genuinely care about my participants and believe in their desire to improve their lives and the lives of their children.

Sometimes I’m wrong.

Recently, a family I’ve been working with for nearly a year came to see me. The mother, who had been more and more distant when speaking about her boyfriend, told me that she planned to ask him to leave the home.

I was ecstatic. I could barely contain my victory whoops. The boyfriend was, in technical terms, an abusive asshole. There was a long history of domestic violence, which the mother and children claimed hadn’t been a problem since we started working together. (My presence is magic, you see.)

The family missed their next office session, and I got a little worried. So I went to see the teenage girls at school. The fifteen year old, who I will hereby refer to as “Mom Jr.” showed me a picture on her cell phone.

Of the gigantic purple bruise on her mother’s arm.

“She said she fell down the stairs. But there’s no way. She does this all the time, saying she’s going to leave him. He hasn’t changed in six years, why is he going to change now? I told her: he goes, or we go. I talked to my grandma, she said we can stay with her. I don’t need my brother and sister thinking this is normal.”

Oh. OK. Looks like you’ve got it.

I’m torn between crying for this girl, who has less faith in her mother and the outside world than the most seasoned, cynical, social worker, and applauding her for having the strength, determination, and intelligence that she somehow does.

I’m also torn between wanting to hug her mother for all that she’s been through, and wanting to scream at her, for subjecting herself and her children to this.

Don’t even ask what I want done to the boyfriend. It’s shocking, even for the internet.

I also can’t help feeling kind of stupid. I know that it takes an average of seven attempts to leave an abusive relationship. I know that the period of time when a victim is attempting to leave is usually the most dangerous time. I know that victims cover up what goes on in the home. But it still feels like I should have known that this wasn’t going to be a real change. Like I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up quite so much.

We recently had to have a little conference with one of the girls in my group, and her worker, due to this girl talking about her mother’s boyfriend being in the home and making her uncomfortable. Of course it turns out that this is the very guy who molested her, and has supposedly had no contact with the family for two years.

The girl immediately started back peddling when we told her we were concerned for her safety and needed to talk to her worker. “Oh, he’s not in the house. My mom was just talking about him.” “But last week you said he grabbed your waist and you didn’t like it.” “Yeah…no never mind. My mom doesn’t want another case.”

It’s easy to become cynical. It’s easy to get pissed off at mothers who don’t protect their children, and grown men who prey on them, and forget that there is good in the world and more good to be done.

We get our hopes up every time it seems like someone is going to make a meaningful change or improvement. Most often, it doesn’t happen. And it hurts, both us and the participants. But sometimes, people surprise us, and they do make those changes. It’s not easy to keep going back for more, when it starts to seem like we get shot further down every day.

People tend to have big reactions when I tell them what I do. “I’m a social worker, in the Bronx.” I inevitably get a look of concern or shock, told that the asker’s job is not nearly so important, and am asked how I do it?

I’ve gotten better at smiling and nodding, or assuring disbelieving conversationalists that I do, in fact, enjoy my job. But no one really buys that. Sure, it’s rewarding, but isn’t my heart just always broken?

Sometimes, sure. I’ve written plenty about that. But this is a time of year when we eat our weight in potatoes give thanks, so I think I should get this out there.

I love my job. This is why.

It’s fun.

I swear. For all the complaining, breast-beating, and oh-what-a-worlding I engage in, my job gives me a lot of joy. And I don’t mean in the sappy “a child’s laughter is all the thanks I need” kind of way. I don’t dread going to work in the morning, like a lot of people I know do. (I used to, back when I did data entry. I could actually see my soul leaking out ears back then.)

Still don’t believe me? I get it. My righteous anger can be a lot to forget. But let me provide some reasons and examples, that I’ve conveniently compiled into bullet points.

I spent a good portion of this week cutting turkey feathers out of construction paper. I then spent most of Tuesday afternoon corralling sugared up toddlers and tweens and helping them to glue said turkey feathers down, and to decorate the office for Christmas. I know it isn’t everyone’s idea of a delightful afternoon, but it’s pretty damn enjoyable for me.

Once a week, I mold young minds in my girls’ group. I get to surreptitiously impart my feminist principles, under the guise of having a Beyoncé dance party.

Occasionally, I have Beyoncé dance parties.

I have gotten to take teen groups camping, to amusement parks, and ice skating.

After the Halloween party, I keep the leftover candy the kids didn’t want. Who the hell turns down Rolos?

I live in a walkable city, and have to do home visits. However rough the job gets, I have a de-stressing walk to look forward to.

On that camping overnight, I got to lead the way in a high ropes course, in which I realized that thirty feet off the ground is a lot higher than it sounds, and my girls learned some new words.

I can wear sneakers to work.

My Spanish improves by leaps and bounds. (Hola.)

At least twice a week, I am greeted with leg-crushing hugs from young kids, and excited shouts of, “Miss SJ!”

Girls’ group includes a snack budget.

Then there are the other things I’m grateful for. The things that make my job doable.

My Droid. OK, so it’s not an iPhone, but still. It has kept me from getting lost and helped me to get information on the go (translation: phone numbers I’ve forgotten to look up) during visits. It has also kept me entertained for simply hours while on delayed trains, or waiting for a delayed conference (email me to compare Fruit Ninja high scores.)

My iPod. Those walks would not be nearly as calming if I didn’t have the sounds of Amy Winehouse, the Decemberists, Mumford and Sons, or Florence and the Machine to keep me going. On really hard days, I play West Side Story and pretend that I’m doing outreach to the Sharks and the Jets.

Amy Winehouse, the Decemberists, Mumford and Sons, Florence and the Machine, musical theater, Glee…the soundtrack to my days and my walks that reminds me that the world can actually produce some pretty beautiful stuff.

My supervisor, who laughs at my inappropriate humor, shows me pictures of puppies when I’m feeling bummed, and believes in my abilities much more than I believe in myself.

My dollar store notebook. Where would I be without that thing? I have no idea, because it has every address I need in it.

My incredibly, amazingly generous family and friends, who somehow find the time to think of me and my families despite everything else they have to think about first. They’ve come through with donations of kids’ magazines for the waiting room, art and office supplies, and Christmas gifts. Not to mention, they listen to me rant and rave, and rarely tell me to shut it.

You blog readers out there. I mean, you know.

Of course I’m also grateful for the parents who finally started treating their son’s mental illness, or the mother who is in the process of leaving her abusive boyfriend. But that’s the boring stuff we all expect. So the thing I find myself most grateful for this year is the my secret fun job. The fact that I’m pretty much having a party every day (more or less) and I get credit for saving the world. There are worse ways to make a living.

Happy Thanksgiving, Americans! And happy Thursday, you international folk!